recite: sweet talk

sweet talk

You are not the Mona Lisa
with that relentless look.
Or Venus borne over the froth
of waves on a pink half shell.
Or an odalisque by Delacroix,
veils lapping at your nakedness.
You are more like the sunlight
of Edward Hopper,
especially when it slants
against the eastern side
of a white clapboard house
in the early hours of the morning,
with no figure standing
at a window in a violet bathrobe,
just the sunlight,
the columns of the front porch
and the long shadows
they throw down
upon the dark green lawn, baby.

[poem by billy collins via oscar pr girl]
[image edward hopper, cape cod morning via smithsonian american art museum]